Messaging services connected by a network have developed as a fast means of communication with a wide audience of users. The network may be a local area network (LAN) consisting of a few users or a wide area network (WAN) with users distributed over a vast geographic area For example, the Internet has worldwide coverage and is a frequently used network for messaging. Messaging via any form of network is defined herein as on-line messaging.
Users are collected into groups with each user being a member of any number of groups. The groups may evolve naturally or be artificially created. Groups may be defined by an infinite number of topics such as geographic location, language, profession, religion, common interest, etc. Within a group messages can be distributed to every member or sub-sets of the members. Messages often take the form of questions looking for information sent by one member of a group referred to as group collaboration.
The increased use of on-line messaging services for group collaboration has introduced messaging overload. Over time, messaging overload will reduce the efficiency of such group collaboration.
Examples of messaging scenarios which illustrate the problems of group collaboration messaging are as follows.                Questions may be aimed at a group where no-one knows the answer.        Each user does not have knowledge of what other groups may be able to answer a question.        Submission of questions to an “everyone” group, in the hope of an answer. As the on-line community expands, this can develop into “spam”, so users often turn off their subscription to the “everyone” group. Thus the question may not be seen by someone who can answer it.        
The explosion in messaging and the reduction in efficiency also increases the capacity requirements for central IT facilities. For example, directory services may become overloaded and network bandwidth may not cope with the volume of communication. These problems result in delays and inefficiency in messaging.
The aim of the present invention is to extend and introduce new capabilities in making connections between groups or communities in an on-line environment and to improve the efficiency of collaboration between on-line users.